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BASEBALL; Soriano Plans to Help Crash Victims

Alfonso Soriano first heard the worried voices of his friends and family after waking up in his New Jersey apartment on Monday. There were 10 or 11 messages on his cellular phone, all from people asking whether he had been on the American Airlines jetliner to the Dominican Republic that had crashed in Queens. His mother, Andrea, had left three of the messages, sobbing into her phone. She was the first person he called back.

''The first thing that came into my mind was that she was worried about me, and she didn't know I wasn't on that plane,'' Soriano, the rookie second baseman for the Yankees, said yesterday. ''Then I started thinking about all the people who died.''

It was a Spanish-speaking radio station based in New York, calling the Dominican Republic after the crash, that had started the rumors that Soriano had been on the flight, he said.

Soriano had been scheduled for weeks to hold a news conference at Gallagher's Steakhouse to promote a discount lunch menu. But news events this week derailed his plans. Yesterday, Soriano, who moved to the United States in 1998 from the Dominican Republic, used the time to say that he would be the host for a meal at the restaurant next spring for the families of the 265 victims of the crash.

''I know now that when I go back to the Dominican Republic, a lot of people will come to me and ask me for help,'' he said, sitting in a black leather jacket with a glittering World Series ring on his right hand, next to his fiancée, Angelica Cortes. ''If I can help them, I will help them.''

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Soriano said that as he listened to news reports of the plane crash on Monday he was not worried about his fellow Dominican ballplayers, since most of them fly home before November. His flight home was scheduled for Nov. 17 because of the World Series. Soriano soon heard from his mother that at least one man from his hometown, San Pedro de Macoris, had died in the crash.

There will still be a parade for Soriano this Saturday when he arrives home, but he expects it to be dampened by the recent events.

''They're going to ask me for help,'' he said, ''and I'll do whatever I can.''

Still, Soriano was able to talk yesterday about other matters as well, like the Yankees' losing the final game of the Series (''It's sad, but I did my job and we'll have more opportunities next year'') and whether he will be moved to left field (''If I have to change positions, I don't care, as long as I'm doing my job and they're happy with me.'')

Soriano then posed with restaurant workers for photographs. For a man about to fly in a few days, he looked relatively calm. He said he had no worries, because this will be the last flight he will take before returning for spring training.